1/28/2013

OWEN is asniper's text who fought in Iraq,wish to become an invitation to be listened in
public, spoken in the space by mouths, heard in time by ears. OWEN is the
detailed elements of a presentation, the performance's steps come from
Beckett’s play Footfalls, offering a rhythmical, more of a metronomic
aspect to the duration of the piece. The performer learnsthe text by heartthrough the help of the passers.When the text is learned and spoken a few timesby onlythe performer, without the adding of words or possible corrections of linguistic errors from the passersthat moment marks the end of the performance. The repetitive reciting of each word, sentence and paragraph which is spoken by the passers who sit on the benches and read again and again to the performercreates a module where the text isheard many times in various ways by many different people. The people engage to the words than what is the performer's representational accomplishment to the role of the sniper. Instead we look each others position in speaking and listening the sniper's words. The passers read and speak the words, look how and in which way the words that the performer speaks are correct and even allowing some errors to exist. This whole process produces, how I call it an oral-monument. When I hear the word monument it comes to mind a stable, fixed representation, a resolved event of the past. Through this piece I'm trying to make a monument that creates history, through a text from the past. History can't be only representations from the past which we suppose to mimic, but words, actions which we learn to share and translate to each other we perhapsallow history to be created, a history of our own inthe present moment. When the piece is taking place the performer is one of the
elements, she/he is amongst the participants to the piece and not the only one to be exposed or to present something. The performer is not
the virtuoso but creates one variation of the piece. OWEN
is an object standing on a shelf, a record that includes the script, the plan that is the formation
of the benches in which the performance is taking place and the contract that
describes it and enables everyone to do it- to learn the text by heart with the help of others. The record was made through the
expertise of typographers and bookbinders from Athens. Without their work the
record wouldn’t be made. OWEN then is a chain of relationships;
exchanges of thoughts, ideas, associations and those are not limited only to
the moment of the performance. Previous relationships constituted the piece
and the ones to come is the reason to do it, to do the performance, nothing else.

Diana
belonging to the Roman Pantheon of deities poses a question here. One
cannot help to wander why Sagri invokes her name rather than the Greek
goddess Artemis. May be that Diana, belonged to a model, such as the
Roman one? And maybe Sagri, an Athenian, is purposefully advocating for a
repulse of her national deities, by choosing a 'newer' and more
'arrow-minded' version of Artemis? Is Sagri observing the mandate of not
using Artemis name in vain? Or is it that Sagri is interested in the
meteoric trajectory of Diana's arrow and that her name starts with a D,
such as Dog or Diogenes' School of Cynics?

Diana
has the capacity to speak to animals and she is also an accomplished
hunter, qualities that Sagri is after, as seen in her video piece where
dogs bark, her wall text or her photos as a naked nymph
with a Rimbaudian haircut; Sagri speaks a speech that seems delivered
by a person with a triple Id: Action & Action & Action. Such a
triple Id subject is, surprisingly, in total consciousness and control
over the notion of own-her-ship. And let's be clear here, rather than
being spoken, Sagri speaks to It, first and foremost to herself, and
later to us with a present and yet ancient own-her-ship.

She
navigates the streets/ while delivering a voice/ that tongue/ that form
of speech outside the limitations of the History of Speech/ that shadow
of mystery daily embodied and experienced by herself.

Sometimes
one thinks that she is made or built by phrases that carry within
themselves the problem of force. In that unstable ground, Sagri as a topos where
one can load content hunts for titles, for sounds, for forms that
direct her trajectory-the structure of action. On ACTION-PLACE-SPEECH we
observe an interest in links and hyper abstraction while participating.
A Chorus in the broadcasting of the destabilizing omnipresence: SAGRI
HERE, SAGRI WHERE, VERY SAGRI, DIANA VERY DOG.

With
the dynamic action of groups and individuals the EMBROS opened a year ago and
still operates as an occupation until today despite the pressures and obstacles of the so called
protectors of the state wealth and culture. We at EMBROS want to learn what is culture through every day actions. Culture is a common. Art is not a product and cannot belong only to the few. The
creative and artistic work in extend cannot be part of the ideals of an
oligarchic system of values in which the person suppose to simply produce,
consume and shut up. EMBROS is an open, self-organized, cultural, political and social space. It is the initiative of individuals and collectives from the arts, theory, and the sciences. The
space which is shaped through relationships, solidarity and
openness, asks everyone to participate, to create, organize and dip reality to the dream. By our continues effort we suggest ways of life and creation for social
inspiration, transformation and empowerment, with a clear revolutionary
vision: a society without passive viewers but active free
organisms. We
invite artists, visionaries, educators, theorists, travelers, groups
and individuals without the need of identification, without any perceptible or aesthetic criteria of difference to be in EMBROS.

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Forté

What is Forté

Forté is a sound magazine. The online magazine's home-screen welcomes you with a voice asking 'Can you see me?' Forté requires its listeners to employ their imagination, their intellect and their intuition. Forté’s authors reflect upon their views without apology. Each issue of Forté delivers new facets of reality, and its chaotic beauty, while allowing its listeners to create their own image of the cosmos. Every three months an issue is available through podcast subscription, offering subjects that a printed magazine would, though with described images and narrated instead of read. The Forté listeners can download every issue and they are free to copy and distribute it in their own manner. [click on the image]

Interview with Alex Kitnick at the Idiom mag (click on the image to read the interview)

WHAT IS SALOON ?

SALOON was created in 2008. It's an on going attempt for performative curatorial subversions, a nomadic project that focuses on moments of metamorphosis and paradox. Through several individual events, in various locations specifically chosen for the works presented, SALOON brings together two artists, two individual works for a performance that will use the works as tools/elements for the Saloon act.

SALOON creates slides and video promo projections, jpg posters sent by email, reflecting the uncanny state of management, doubling and transference.

The Summer Apartment/ Logo - screen saver, 2008

Do Jaguar

Put your money where your mouth is

Poster, On stellar Rays Gallery, NY, 2009

WE ARE AN IMAGE FROM THE FUTURE/The Greek Revolt of December 2008

What causes a city, then a whole country, to explode? How did one neighborhood's outrage over the tragic death of one teenager transform itself into a generalized insurrection against State and capital, paralyzing an entire nation for a month? This is a book about the murder of fifteen-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos, killed by the police in the Exarchia neighborhood of Athens on December 6th, 2008, and of the revolution in the streets that followed, bringing business as usual in Greece to a screeching, burning halt for three marvelous weeks, and putting the fear of history back into the bureaucrats of Fortress Europe and beyond. We Are an Image From the Future delves into the December insurrection and its aftermath through interviews with those who witnessed and participated in it, alongside the communiqués and texts that circulated through the networks of revolt. It provides the on-the-ground facts needed to understand these historic events, and also dispels the myths activists outside of Greece have constructed around them. What emerges is not just the intensity of the riots, but the stories of organizing and solidarity, the questions of strategy and tactics: a desperately needed examination of the fabric of the Greek movements that made December possible.[click on the image]